All posts tagged Balenciaga

If Alexander Wang played baseball, he’d be on third base about to run home. In joining the Balenciaga team, he inherited a mythic label from a designer (Nicolas Ghesquiere) who wasn’t widely known but was beloved within the fashion community. His job: boost the label’s public profile, create an atelier brimming with sellable accessories, and maintain the love fest with the insiders. Tough job.

He is nailing the accessories gig. Many of his models were loaded with three bags in Balenciaga’s show here Thursday morning, and each bag was designed with that sense of what a woman needs (room for her phone, iPad, school lunch menu, overstuffed wallet, broken lipstick case and 17 pens) that he used to create hot-seller bags at his eponymous label. But these are deluxe — of croc, fur and the like. Sleek, chic and utilitarian.

The clothes were likewise luxe, wearable, and intriguing. Zippers that wound decoratively up the leg and over the buttocks are the sort of innovation you want from a young designer. It wasn’t forceful enough to lead the season in new approaches, but so what? At the price — women are far more likely to spend $2,000 on a bag than a skirt — this is an accessories brand that’s worth paying attention to if you care about fashion. Read More »

Alexander Wang is one of New York and Paris fashion weeks’ hottest designers. He was not gracious about his blessings tonight.

Having a must-see collection is no reason to ask people to hike, freeze on a water taxi in February, spend hours in transit among hundreds of vehicles descending simultaneously on a security-controlled venue, or spend several hundred dollars on drivers to see your 14-minute show–unless that particular Mount Everest of a show venue is unequaled in a more accessible place.

The warehouse at the Brooklyn Navy Yard where Mr. Wang showed his fall 2014 collection was a fine warehouse, as warehouses go. But a wowser it was not. Read More »

PARIS — When people are crying, things are either spectacular or truly bad. At the Rick Owens show rehearsal today, Mr. Owens cried and so did his steely publicist Pierre Rougier. Some guests dabbed tears during the show. After the show, the models mopped their tears with tissues as they hugged one another.

Using step dance club “sorority sisters” from New York and Washington DC, Mr. Owens put his collection into tear-jerker realm. His runway show was emotional, entertaining — and also entirely wearable. His rock-n-roll, layered, I-live-at-art-openings aesthetic came through loud and clear, even though it wasn’t shown on 6-foot-tall 17-year-olds.

The dancers fit the general dimensions of real women. Nearly all of them were of color, in a season when the runways have been criticized for their caucasian-ness. If those moto jackets and space age tennis dresses look awesome on real-bodied women, we can all slip into Rick Owens. Perhaps that’s why everyone was crying. Finally, accessible fashion.

What’s more, those models were giving it their earnest all. Janille Hill, 30, who lives in Harlem, says her step dance group started working on the performance last May. But she didn’t quite believe it would happen until the plane ticket was in her hand. “It’s like, a designer in Paris who wants to do step?” she said, wiping tears from her cheeks. Read More »

It’s official, PPR has tapped American designer Alexander Wang as Balenciaga’s new creative director, the second high-profile appointment in the company’s fashion divisions after Yves Saint Laurent changed its top designer (who then changed the brand’s name) earlier this year.

Wang, 28, will replace Nicolas Ghesquiere who left the job on Friday after what PPR described as a joint decision between the company and him. PPR’s announcement last month that Ghesquiere was leaving shocked the fashion world.

One of the darlings of fashion whose collections often received rave reviews, Ghesquiere had been the head designer for Balenciaga since 1997.

“Alexander Wang will use his creativity and his own research to reinterpret and immortalize the distinctive, modern and extremely innovative style imposed by Cristobal Balenciaga,” said Francois-Henri Pinault, PPR chairman and chief executive.

While becoming the chief designer at Balenciaga, Mr. Wang will “continue his activities with his own independently-owned fashion house,” PPR said. Read More »

In the latest shocker to roil the fashion world, luxury giant PPR announced today that designer Nicolas Ghesquiere is parting ways with Balenciaga.

The move was unexpected, even by some at Balenciaga. Reached by phone in Paris, spokesman Lionel Vermeil expressed his own surprise. “Last week you have Sandy. This week you have Nicolas Ghesquiere leaves Balenciaga,” he said. Asked if he had learned of the shift just today, he laughed and responded, “Read my lips.”

The company’s announcement said that the parting was “a joint decision” by Ghesquiere and PPR. Read More »

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